What is a Keyword Research Tool For? Do You Need It?

Most often, visitors who are looking for information will begin their search with words they type in the search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. As website owners, we would be interested to know what those visitors are searching for because if we can create content that offers them relevant answers, then we can expect more visitors to our website.

So a keyword research tool serves our purpose, as website owners, in that it can help us determine the keywords people are looking for in the search engines. Knowing these keywords is important in planning our website’s content so that it becomes more “search engine-friendly”, and help the website to rank tops in the search engines. Preferably, you want your website to be ranked on the first page of the search engines for the keywords that visitors are looking for.

Therefore, a keyword research tool essentially provides content creators the knowledge on relevant keywords that can help in the writing of relevant and valuable articles for visitors. This implies selecting the ‘right’ keyword(s) can make or break a piece of content.

Getting Ideas For Keywords

There are certainly many keyword research tools out there. But before using any tool to do keyword research, some of the basic indicators that website owners usually look out for are :

The volume or number of searches a particular keyword/phrase has in a month – higher searches indicate that the keyword is looked up often

The number of competiting websites aiming for the keyword/phrase – the lower the competition, the better your chances of ranking high in the search engines

So you want to look for keywords with high search volume and low competition.

Google provides a free tool that you can use to check on the above indicators for a keyword or phrase. After creating an account in Google Keyword Planner , go to the drop-down menu ‘Tools’ and select ‘Keyword Planner’.

‘Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category’ will enable you to get some ideas on related keywords that you might want to use.

As an example, if you look up ‘treadmill for weight loss’ and hit ‘Get Ideas’ at the bottom of the page, you would get :

As ‘treadmill for weight loss’ shows you are facing ‘medium competition’, you might want to go for those words with lower competition, but still center around your chosen niche.

Using Google Keyword Planner is a means to get ideas on words/phrases that you might want to use in your content. However, website owners generally use one or more keyword research tools that help them sieve through list of potential keywords.

While there are differences in the way that various keyword research tools work, the common goal in using one is to reduce the time on keyword research and get more specific data. Following are some paid keyword research tools that you might want to consider :

Why Creating Valuable Content is Important?

Firstly, we have taken Google Keyword Planner as a guide to brainstorm ideas on keywords. Now, there’s of course a reason why we do this. The majority of searches (more than 80 percent) are made via Google. So we want to pay attention to what people are typing in their Google search bars.

Many content creators used to focus on specific keywords to make their posts/articles optimized for the search engines. In doing so, sometimes the content does not serve its purpose of providing valuable information that the visitor seeks. For instance, when I’m searching for ‘treadmills for weight loss’, I wouldn’t appreciate a piece of content that just lists different treadmill brands or models. I want to know more on ‘how a treadmill can help lose weight’, ‘why Model X is better than Model Y’, ‘what can model X do that model Y can’t’.

So as content creators, we must anticipate the kind of information that visitors are looking for that can contribute to his experience when visiting the website. In the real estate industry, it’s about location, location, location. If I may say, to website owners, it’s about content, content, content.

Previously, using exact match keywords was a norm. When we look up ‘treadmills for weight loss’ the search engine results page (SERP) would list webpages which use those exact keywords. With changes in Google’s algorithms, SERP would show webpages which discuss issues that surround ‘treadmills for weight loss’, rather than those that use the exact keyword phrase. This is the very reason why apart from focusing on keywords, we must work on providing valuable content – information that visitors anticipate just from reading your post/article headlines. Just listing products or peppering your posts with affiliate links would not help boost rankings either!

Final Note

When doing keyword research, it’s important that you target few keywords/phrases as opposed to just one exact keyword match. Google places great emphasis on the total experience of the visitor to the information found via the search engine. Although creating content undeniably begins with a well-researched keyword(s), it’s ultimately about providing value to the visitor.

About The Author

Zailinah

I was a serial online product buyer till I found success in affiliate marketing. I created About Online Business to share my experience. As you are well aware, success is no walk in the park. But perseverance pays. Your opinion is important to me so feel free to share your thoughts. Our views may differ but that does not mean we can't learn from each other. Go ahead, leave me your thoughts below:)

It took me a long time to realize the importance of using appropriate keywords in your article. At one point I just tried to target any audience I could, and just fell flat on my face every time! Now I know better, as I choose key words that are geared toward targeting a specific audience as opposed to just anyone. Not only does that create a relevant audience, but it increases your credibility when trying to rank in the major search engines for those key words. And we all know what happens as you rank higher: you get more attention and more opportunities for business! Great article!

I get what you mean about ‘trying to target audience’. I think it’s common to start keyword research with a broad topic, for instance trampolines. Then I would try to place myself in the position of someone who’s looking to buy a trampoline. From there, I question myself, for instance, on ‘why am I buying a trampoline’ – for fun or for exercise? Then, we would get into what kind of trampoline to buy. Like Kyle emphasized in his training, the key is to find those ‘low-hanging fruit’ keywords. Some may not have hundreds, thousands of searches per month but if those keywords indicate you can get decent traffic for your website, then those are the keywords to go for.

Searching for keywords can be tedious but it gets fun if you use the right tools! And Jorge, thanks for sharing this post in G+.